Hungary, Netherlands Rule the Pool in European Water Polo Qualifying

The Game Day 10 of the FINA Women's Water Polo World League 2019, as part of the European qualification phase, was played last night (Tuesday March 5) in Szentes (HUN) and Rotterdam (NED) respectively. Current photo via FINA

Both the men and women’s FINA Water Polo World League Intercontinental-Cups are set to kick-off in Perth, Australia, next week from March 26-31, with sixteen (2x eight) teams that will battle it out in the pool to hopefully secure a berth to the Super Final.

With just a handful of upsets on Week 8, it is no surprise that there weren’t many major moves in the Week 9 CWPA Top 25 rankings. The Top 13 remained in tact. Bucknell moved back into the poll, while Princeton dropped three spots to #17.

In a week that featured 21 matches between ranked teams and four Top 10 affairs, there were just three upsets. San Jose State was involved in all three upsets, topping Princeton, but falling to Marist and Bucknell.

The Hungarians, playing at home, defeated Italy 12-8 despite a tie in the first quarter (3-3, 3-1, 3-2, 3-2).

In Rotterdam, the Dutch crushed France 19-2, giving the French no chance as of the second quarter and until the end of the match (5-2, 4-0, 4-0, 6-0).

Both teams being in Group B, Hungary maintained its second position with 11 points now, and the Netherlands are still third of the group with 10 points. Italy is the leader with 15 points. All teams have played 6 games.

Group A’s game, Greece-Spain, will conclude the European preliminaries on March 19. However, six teams have already secured a berth to the brand new Europa Cup Final, to be held in Turin (ITA) from March 29-31, 2019.

Those six teams are: Russia, Italy, Spain, Hungary, Greece and the Netherlands.